Holton's legacy goes back more than a century to humble beginnings in Chicago where Frank Holton, former principal trombonist for the Sousa band, used to buy and sell used horns. Today Holton is a leading manufacturer of student model, intermediate and professional brass instruments including cornets, trumpets, trombones, and French horns. Holton established a factory in Elkhorn, Wisconsin in 1918, and operated continually into 2011when they moved operations to Eastlake, Ohio to merge manufacturing with the King and Conn companies in one of a very few remaining brass instrument manufacturing facilities still in America. Holton's commitment to student instruments and music education in schools remains as much a part of its present as it does its legacy.